Tuesday, December 24, 2013

I thought I would share a few of the recipes that my family and I will be sharing over the next few days.

For all family gatherings, I have been asked to bring White Chocolate Bread Pudding which means that I am making it three times. It's definitely a crowd pleaser.

For brunch today with dear friends, we will enjoy the Pioneer Woman's Cowboy Quiche while we decorate Christmas cookies and gingerbread houses with the kids.

For Christmas morning, I always make Monkey Bread. (this links you to the Pioneer Woman's page but I don't follow her recipe, as this is one that my Grandma J taught me as a child. I just haven't posted it yet.)

Monday, November 18, 2013

Each week I buy 3-4 bananas at the grocery store.
Some weeks we eat them all but some weeks I find myself left with a few, overly
ripe bananas. When this happens, I like to freeze the bananas for a later use.

I prefer to peel my bananas before freezing and then
simply add the bananas to a gallon-sized freezer bag. Then I can take out them,
as needed. Frozen bananas can be used for many different recipes such as banana
bread, muffins and pancakes. I also use frozen bananas as a base for smoothies.

Monday, November 11, 2013

This is a super-easy recipe that is quick and
delicious. My little guy loves to be my assistant in the kitchen and I love the
mommy-son time so I enlisted his help. He was very enthusiastic about adding
chocolate chips and some of these got quite a few on top.

﻿

Enjoy!

Easy Chocolate-Chip Pumpkin Muffins.

1 yellow cake mix

1 15 oz. can of pumpkin

Mini-Chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin pan with
liners or spray pan with non-stick cooking spray. Combine cake mix and pumpkin
until well combined. Stir in desired amount of chocolate chips. Spoon into
muffin pan, filling each about 2/3 full. Add chocolate-chips to the top of
muffins, if desired. Bake 15-20 minutes.

Friday, November 8, 2013

I recently decided that I needed to get creative
with my little guy’s lunchbox and thought I would share some of our lunchbox
snapshots.

This is a star-shaped peanut butter and jelly
sandwich, a box of yogurt raisins, natural applesauce and pretzels. For the sandwich,
I used a star shaped cookie cutter. Through trial and error, I have learned
that it’s easier to cut the bread with the cookie cutter first then add the
peanut butter and jelly.

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

My husband recently celebrated his 20-year high
school reunion. Along with the festivities came house guests and I found myself
needing to prepare brunch for a crowd. So what did I make? Quiche. I mean who
doesn’t love a quiche?! Quiche is my go-to dish when entertaining at
breakfast/brunch. Quiche can be made using a variety of different ingredients,
can be made in advance and freezes well.

We enjoyed this quiche with a fruit salad and
biscuits with homemade strawberry butter. And while I was making them, I went
ahead and made a few extra to put in my freezer for easy dinner this winter.

Reduce oven to 400 degrees. Add ham and
cheese to pie crust. Whisk together eggs, milk and seasonings. Pour into pie
crust, over the ham and cheese. Bake until set, about 35-40 minutes. Allow to
cool before cutting.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

For a working mom, trying to get dinner on the table at a
reasonable hour during the week can be difficult! I try to help myself out
whenever I can with shortcuts that I can use during the week. One such trick is
to prep and freeze. My local grocery store has had an abundance of beautiful
bell peppers lately. Luckily, these will freeze perfectly for use in soups,
stews, casseroles and fajitas.

Over the weekend, I bought 8 peppers in a variety of colors.
During nap time, I spent 20 minutes in the kitchen dicing and slicing them and
placed them in freezer bags in the freezer. During the week, I can easily add these to my
dinners without spending the time chopping.

Monday, September 30, 2013

Another slow cooker meal! This recipe came about one
day when I went home for lunch and decided I needed to throw something in the slow
cooker for dinner. That night at dinner, my husband raved about the chicken and
requested to have it again, soon. Since then, we’ve had this several times and
it has become a family favorite.

Enjoy!

Slow
Cooker Teriyaki Chicken.

2
lbs. frozen boneless skinless chicken breasts or thighs

1
bottle teriyaki sauce

½ onion,
sliced

1
small can pineapple tidbits

Place
all ingredients in the slow cooker and cook on low six hours. Using two forks,
shred the chicken and let it simmer in sauce another 30 minutes. Serve over
rice.

Friday, September 27, 2013

We’ve gotten into a bit of a rut with our vegetables
at dinner time. So I’m trying to incorporate some new vegetables or vegetables
in different ways. This was an instant hit and will be added into our regular
rotation.

If you need a new vegetable for your dinner table,
this recipe is worth a try! I’m anxious to try this with spinach too.

Heat the olive oil in a large
skillet over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and quickly sauté. Throw in the
kale and use tongs to toss the kale in the skillet. Sprinkle in salt and pepper
and continue cooking until slightly wilted but still crisp, about 1 to 2
minutes.

Monday, September 23, 2013

One of my favorite breakfast meals is chocolate gravy
and biscuits with a side of bacon. My mom made this for me and my brother all
the time when we were growing up.I’m
pretty sure there was a period of time when we had it almost every weekend. Now I’m carrying on the tradition with my son. Needless
to say, he’s a huge fan of having chocolate for breakfast!

When I make chocolate gravy, I prefer to use frozen
biscuits instead of making homemade biscuits since the chocolate gravy is
really the star of the show. I also like to add butter to my biscuits before I pour
on the gravy. That’s just my personal preference.

Heat butter in a sauce
pan over low heat. Mix in sugar, flour and cocoa. Slowly pour 1 cup of milk
into the skillet and whisk well to remove lumps. Whisk in remaining milk,
stirring constantly, until mixture is thick, being careful not to scorch. Serve
hot over biscuits.

Monday, September 9, 2013

One dreary rainy day, not so long ago, I decided
that I wanted to make cookies with my 2 ¾ year old. He loves to be my helper
right now, especially when it involves food. So while he finished his nap, I did
some googling and came upon this Martha Stewart recipe for Emeril's
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies. The recipe requires no flour and no
butter.

These were a big hit at our house
and we have made them 3 more times since we first tried them. The cookies taste
great and you don’t even notice that the cookies don’t have flour and butter. If
you have kids helping you in the kitchen this really is a great cookie recipe
because the cookie dough comes together quick and easy. Slade particularly
liked smooshing the cookies with a fork on the baking sheet.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. In
a large bowl, combine all ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon until
smooth. Roll about 1 heaping tablespoon in your hands to form a smooth ball.
Place dough balls on baking sheets, 1 inch apart. Then use a fork to press dough
in two directions to form a crosshatch pattern.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Is there really anything else that I need to say?
BLTs are amazing. Add avocado to that and it gets even better.

My son is on a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich kick.
Don’t get me wrong, I love a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich but I don’t want
them every day. So while my little man had his beloved sandwich for dinner, my
husband and I had BLTAs.

Friday, August 30, 2013

My dear friend Amanda just had a baby girl a few weeks ago! A few months ago, I had the pleasure of hosting a baby shower for her. This was my first time hosting a shower for a baby girl and I was so excited.

I really wanted to have a favor that would be cute and useful. After many hours of research, I decided to do small bottles of hand sanitizer with a cute tag. As luck would have it, Bath and Body Works had their hand sanitizer on sale that week so I was able to get their cute, good-smelling version instead of just a regular, unscented bottle of hand sanitizer. I opted for only scents that were pink or came in pink bottles, of course.

For the tags, I used this tag template and cut the tags out of hot pink cardstock. I printed the message on plain white paper and then cut the notes into smaller rectangles that would fit on the tags. I attached the messages to the tags with a glue stick. I cut holes in the tag with a hole punch and then attached the tags to the bottles using pink ribbon.They were a huge hit!

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Hello again! It’s been awhile since my last post.
Here in the south, we are experiencing the usual end of summer sweltering
temperatures. At our house, that means we are enjoying meals that do not
require the oven, which often includes a salad. And what goes perfectly with a
salad? Croutons!

I’m pretty sure that croutons are my son’s favorite
part of the salad. Let me just say that homemade croutons taste so much better
than store-bought croutons. Store-bought croutons are just so dry and boring. Once
you make your own croutons, it will be hard to eat the store-bought ones again!

I make my croutons in the skillet and they are ready
to go in about 5 minutes. Many people make their croutons in the oven. I’ve
tried that method and it works great. But again, I am trying to avoid the oven.
Also, the oven method takes 20-30 minutes. When I’m trying to throw together a
quick weeknight meal, I don’t have that sort of time.Any leftover croutons can be stored in an
airtight container; however, I enjoy them most when they are prepared right
before I intend to serve them.

I really like the versatility of making my own
croutons because I can flavor them to complement the other flavors in my salad.
On this particular night, I had some
leftover romaine lettuce and a rotisserie chicken so we had caesar salad. I had
about half a loaf of cheddar cheese bread from the grocery store bakery
leftover from making cheesy garlic bread the night before (to go with
spaghetti) so that’s what I used. Since the bread already had so much flavor by
itself, I just added salt and pepper. But you can use any bread which makes
this a great way to use up leftover bread. You can use any combination of dried
herbs and/or garlic that you like. Sometimes I even like to add freshly grated
parmigiano-reggiano right at the end of the cooking process.

Add
butter and olive oil to a large skillet over medium heat. When the butter has
melted, add the bread cubes, salt, pepper and any seasonings to the skillet and
toss to coat. Cook 3-5 minutes, turning at least once, until croutons have
reached desired level of browness/crispiness.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

For the blue baby shower I hosted for my dear friend, I decided to make cupcake toppers to decorate the cupcakes with. These were really easy to make. She had already chosen her baby boy’s name so I was able to incorporate his name into my toppers.

To make the cupcake toppers, I printed the letter “G” and the name “Garrett” in blue, size 48 font, leaving space in between the letters and words so that there would be room for the circles. Then I used a scalloped edge 1 ½ inch round punch and punched out all of the letters and names. Next, I used a 2 inch round punch and punched out the background circles in blue cardstock. Then I attached the small circles to the blue cardstock. I used a non-toxic glue stick. Once those were dry, I attached the lollipop stick to the circle. I used regular non-toxic school glue for this. The tricky party is being sure that the stick is lined up correctly with the letter/name on the circle so the letter/name would be straight when it went into the cupcake.

I decided to make my cupcake toppers two sided since my dessert table was set up so that people could walk around the table and I didn’t want the backside of the cupcakes to be undecorated. To do this, I simply punched out double the letters, names and blue circles. Once the first circle had been attached to the stick and the glue dried, I simply turned it over and added the second circle.

Then I pushed them into the center of the cupcakes for an adorable and personalized decoration!

Friday, May 10, 2013

I hosted a baby shower for a dear friend a few months back. I usually make diaper cakes for baby showers but this time around I decided to make a diaper wreath instead. This was actually very easy and I was so pleased with how it turned out.

This is what you will need:

·Diapers- I used about 36 size one diapers. I used the Target brand diapers that had blue, green and gray stars since the diapers would be seen but you can choose any brand/pattern that works for you.

·One metal wreath form.You can do any size that you like. I opted for a 20 inch one.

·Ribbon for attaching the diapers to the wreath. You could also use rubber bands.

·Tulle/Ribbon for decorating and bow.

First, wrap the diaper around the wreath form so that the wreath form is inside the diaper. The top of the diaper should be on the outer ring of the wreath and the bottom of the diaper should be on the inner ring. Gather the top of the diaper together and secure with a ribbon. Repeat with each diaper, slightly overlapping the next diaper over the last one added.

Once all of the diapers have been added the wreath form should not be visible and it will look like this (pardon the mess on my table!):

Now comes the decoration part. I used two different colors of blue tulle to wrap around the diapers to cover up the ribbons used to secure them to the wreath form. I simply took one color and wrapped it over one diaper and then under the next, all the way around the wreath. With the second color, I wrapped it over the remaining diapers and under the diapers with the first color on top.

Once both colors are added it should look like this.

Next, I added a tulle bow.

Here’s the finished product hanging on my front door with a sign with the baby’s name in the middle.

I wish I would have made the sign a little bit bigger but I didn’t realize how small it looked with the giant wreath until about 10 minutes before everyone arrived. Oops! I’ll do better next time!

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Peanut butter cups are one of my favorite desserts. So when we had cupcakes at a recent work event and I was excited when I saw peanut butter cup cupcakes on the dessert table. But I found the peanut butter cup cupcake to be disappointing. It was very dry and lacked any real chocolate or peanut butter flavor. In the following days, I just couldn’t get that subpar cupcake out of my mind. Sad, isn’t it? So I decided that I could do better and set out to make an extraordinary peanut butter cup cupcake.

As soon as I saw this recipe on Two Peas that included a full peanut butter cup in the cupcake, I knew my cupcake mission would be a success. I used their peanut butter frosting recipe as well. I love Hershey's “Perfectly Chocolate” Chocolate Cake recipe so I used that in place of the one in the Two Peas’ recipe. Really any chocolate cupcake recipe, or even a cake mix, will work. These do take a bit of time to assemble but it is well worth it.

So how do you get that full size peanut butter cup in the cupcake?

Simply pour a small scoop of batter into each cupcake liner, place the peanut butter cup butter on top of the batter and then add remaining batter to the cupcake liner, covering the peanut butter cup.

Bake the cupcakes according to your cupcake recipe. Mine were in the oven for 20 minutes. When you take them out of the oven, they look like normal chocolate cupcakes.

I just got a new cupcake carrier. Isn’t this so neat?

It's easy to carry and I really like how the holders stack together.

Once the cupcakes are cool, mix up your frosting and try not to eat it all.

I made about 30 cupcakes to take to work and this frosting recipe made enough for all of my cupcakes. Although, I’m a fan of mounds of icing on cupcakes so if you are more liberal with your frosting you might need to double the recipe, depending on the number of cupcakes you make.

Don’t these look delicious?!?!

There wasn’t a single cupcake left when I took these to work. That’s always a good indication of whether a new recipe was a success. Mission accomplished!

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a muffin pan with cupcake liners. Pour a spoonful of batter into prepared cupcake liners. Place full size peanut butter cup in the cupcake liner and then add remaining batter, filling cups 2/3 full with batter. Bake 22 to 25 minutes.

Once completely cooled, frost the cupcake with peanut butter frosting. Top each cupcake with a mini peanut butter cup if desired.